HashiCorp Vault

HashiCorp Vault is a service that controls access to secrets such as passwords, API keys, certificates, and encryption keys. It authenticates people and applications, applies access policies, and can create short-lived credentials instead of distributing permanent ones.

itIdentity, access, and cryptography

HashiCorp Vault

Applications need credentials, certificates, and encryption keys. Copying those secrets into configuration files or deployment systems creates many uncontrolled copies. Rotation becomes slow. It also becomes difficult to answer who accessed a secret and when.

HashiCorp Vault gives people and workloads one identity-based interface for secrets and encryption services. A client authenticates through an auth method. Vault associates policies with the resulting token. Those policies decide which API paths and operations the client may use.

That request path is the core mental model:

A person or workload proves its identity through an auth method.
Vault issues a token with policies.
The client requests an operation at a path.
Vault checks the token's policies.
A secrets engine stores, generates, or transforms the requested data.
Vault records the request and response through configured audit devices.

HashiCorp Vault

Relevant careers